Amazon Luna Games with Prime

An interesting turn of events, indeed. After the last couple of outings with Amazon Luna/Prime Gaming, I’ve been losing hope, and I believe next month we’ll get another gut punch of terrible, horrible, no good, very boring games, but for now we got a decent month. For those who care about the Cloud Gaming aspect, you get to play Star Wars Outlaws and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora – no thank you. For those doing the “GameNight” thing, you can also play King of Tokyo and It’s Quiz Time: Guinness World Records right now, with Bowling Mayhem and Cranium Planet coming soon.

Available now for the Epic Games Store and launched in 2024, Brave Lamb Studio S.A.’s War Hospital puts you back in the center of World War 1 (What do you mean, one?) as a retired “British” (English) combat medic forming a pre-MASH unit to deal with the kids that Lord Melchett sends into the grinder, only to be chewed up. I quite like it in principle, if I am honest. Too often you’re expected to be a combatant in war games; I like the idea of running a field hospital on the edge of the Western Front to try and save some of the young (and they were young) boys going through hell.

Once again available via claiming on the Epic Games Store and can be nabbed right now: Just Die Already. I keep asking for a gun, but they won’t let me have it, though. Previously available through Epic’s weekly free giveaways (this week’s wasn’t much), it is a very tongue firmly planted in cheek sandbox thing. Akin to the likes of Goat Simulator, you play as an old person who wears a stupid hat, runs around with guns on a scooter, and plays in traffic. Yet the property values never go down because you hand down your seventeen homes to your 68-year-old grandson two steps away from his own grave.

On to this week, as we write, and it is Drop Duchy. Available now for the Epic Games Store, Drop Duchy was released last year to very positive reviews for its turn-based tactical Rogue-lite card battling, which Alexx quite enjoyed last year when he reviewed it. Noting that “All in all, Drop Duchy is a blast. It has that ‘just one more run’ quality to it that keeps me excited to play.” So far, two out of three ain’t bad; shall we go for a third and fourth?

Available with a GOG code, you can pick up DOOM + DOOM II right now. Yes, the original 3D (2.5D) shooter about ripping the horns off of a demon from hell on the surface of Mars at a breakneck pace and wiping the blood under its nose like a dirty Sanchez. No, kids, don’t ask your parents or the internet what that is; ask them about Doom instead. The first was launched in 1993, leading to many clones, with the second a year later, titled Doom II: Hell on Earth, being bigger, louder, faster, and just a little bit sexier. This edition of both games, announced in 2024, features expansions and other additions throughout the years.

Keeping with the 10th and back to the Epic Games Store once again, and sadly another repeat of what has been available on the Epic Games Store previously: Botany Manor. Released in 2024, Balloon Studios’ Botany Manor is a puzzle walking sim-ish game about running a stately home in England and discovering details about plants. If you somehow didn’t get that from the title, please go to school on Monday. It is a fine, lovely little bit of wholesome, puzzling, plant-based adventuring.

Less wholesome on the 17th, though, and oddly enough available via a Microsoft Code, DOOM Eternal is the second of the modern revival of Doom and was released in 2020. It is also the last one to have some speed to it, since the latest one (Doom: The Dark Ages) put on its big goth boots and stomped through treacle. After adding the chainsaw-for-ammo mechanic in 2016 and a flamethrower-for-armor mechanic here, there is also a heavy upgrade to movement that makes a slower sequel (prequel) less enjoyable. A bit bloated, especially in the story department, but it doesn’t take away from an otherwise fine game about ripping horns off and placing them up rectums.

From one rim to another, we’ll continue with the 17th, but return to the Epic Games Store once again for Nacon Studio Milan’s RiMS Racing. Sadly, I had the “pleasure” of reviewing this one back in 2021 when it was released, and wished I hadn’t, as it is one of those racing sims that “combines a realistic racing challenge with engineering and mechanics!” Indeed, and much like the fable where my uncle lost an arm due to a motorbike accident, RiMS Racing was the motorbike racing game that told me not to bother with others.

Going for something a bit more modern and this time available for the Amazon Games App on the 17th, Wall World 2 is the sequel (shocker!) to Alawar’s 2023 kind of tower defense resource management game. Adding to the sauce of climbing the side of a mountain, mining, and evidently fighting bugs, it is just a more full Rogue-lite experience as you progress incrementally. Not my thing, but certainly praised heavily for those not burnt out on Rogue-likes/lites.

The penultimate game you’ll pick up for the Epic Games Store and on the 24th, it is what Soulja Boy would have been cranking if he was looking through a kaleidoscope. That’s a horrible joke, but it made someone laugh because it is Hue (HUE!!). Released in 2016, Fiddlesticks Games’ Hue is a puzzle platformer that I’ve spoken about before because it is a delightful little puzzle game based around a color wheel of hues. If you’re looking for a fun little puzzle platformer, it is worth it, and ignore Steam when it tells you that it is anything like Hollow Knight: Silksong.

Apple. Also available on the 24th, but you won’t pick it up because it is the Legacy Games code offer; it is The Da Vinci Cryptex. Apple, it has always been Apple. There you go, I’ve saved you 450 pages, 2 hours of a crap film with Tom Hanks, and whatever time it takes to play XSGames’ The Da Vinci Cryptex. Thank me later.

The final game on offer for the 24th of September will be available for the Epic Games Store, and it is Squanch Games’ High on Life. A game highly dependent on whether you enjoy ramming the vocal equivalent of (as they are called in the real world) cotton buds of Rick and Morty-style “adult comedy” against your eardrums to nauseating degrees. Yes, it is that Justin Roiland game where Justin Roiland does that one voice Justin Roiland does; it is a bit like that joke about David Martindale. Yet beyond that, you have an ok shooter, trying to be a comedy game with some irreverence and a limp ending.